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Double Slit Experiment Essay

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Since the beginning of time, mankind has been baffled by light. Scientists have struggled to explain light and how it operates. During the nineteenth century, a special experiment took place that changed all preconceived theories of light.This report will cover Young’s Double Slit Experiment, how it works,and the properties behind the experiment. Pay special attention to the visual diagrams.
During the centuries preceding Young's experiment, light was widely accepted as being comprised particles, not waves. This theory was made popular by Sir Isaac Newton, and accepted as true until Young proved him wrong in 1801. Young sought out to prove that light was made of waves, not particles; but his findings opened up a whole new spectrum that scientist never foresaw.
In 801, Thomas Young conducted his experiment to prove that light was indeed made of waves. To do so, he had to find a coherent light source. At the time, the only artificial light sources were candles, and lamps; today we can conduct this experiment with ease via high powered lasers and lamps. Young's solution to...

In this essay, the author

  • Explains how young's double slit experiment changed all preconceived theories of light.
  • Explains how young's experiment proved that light was made of waves, not particles, which was popularized by sir isaac newton, until young proved it wrong in 1801.
  • Explains how thomas young conducted his experiment to prove that light was indeed made of waves, using a coherent light source.
  • Explains young's double slit experiment, where two lines of light projected from the two slits. if light were to be a wave, the waves would diffract and interfere with one another.
  • Explains that light acts as a wave when you conduct this expirment. the brightest line is in the middle and darkens as you go outward from the center.
  • Explains that the results of the double slit experiment can be obtained from a single one. the different waves traveling through the single is interfered with, canceling or adding to each other, causing fringes.
  • Explains how the experiment was conducted at the atomic level, via protons and electrons. they explain how each proton interferes with itself, just like a wave.
  • Concludes that thomas young opened up a broad new spectrum for the world of science and physics to explore.
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    Providing the basis of nineteenth century physics, Young's Double Slit Experiment proved that light was made up of waves. During Thomas Young’s time, it was very difficult to describe the behavior of light. The predominant theory was that light was made up of particles. However, in his experiment, Young was able to observe the interaction of light waves when passed through two slits, showing the wave-like nature of light. This report will cover the reasons for Young’s experiment, the experiment itself, and its implications.

    In this essay, the author

    • Explains that thomas young's double slit experiment proved that light was made up of waves.
    • Explains how thomas young sought to resolve whether light was made of a stream of particles or waves. sir isaac newton proved the particle theory by disproving the wave theory, giving support to newton’s corpuscular theory of light.
    • Explains young's experiment where sunlight passes through a single slit and then through two thin, parallel slits. light particles, like balls, would pass straight through and make an exact pattern on the other side.
    • Explains that when young began his experiment, the screen showed an interference pattern of light and dark fringes. this can only be explained by the wave theory.
    • Explains how thomas young developed an equation that relates a light’s wavelength, the separation between slits, distance between the
    • Analyzes how the results of young's experiment confused physicists because they didn't know how light could travel in particles and behave like a wave.
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    • Explains that the electromagnetic spectrum is a range of different types of radiations that travel and spread out as it goes. the two most important characteristics of the spectrum are wavelength and frequency.
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    • Explains that the word oscilloscope combines latin and greek language to form names for instruments that enable the eye or ear to make observation.
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    • Explains that ruisantos (2013) discovers a simple and cheap implementation of oscilloscope by just connecting the arduino pin 0 to the signal that he want to read.
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    • Analyzes how quantum mechanics effected waves, electromagnetic radiation, or photons, and matter particles. green concludes the discussion by talking about the uncertainty principle.
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    For instance, throughout the nineteenth century, it was correctly believed that light was a wave. If light were a wave like all other waves, it must have a medium through which to propagate through. This medium was called the ether, a substance which was everywhere throughout the universe. If this hypothesis were true one would be able to calculate the velocity of the Earth through the ether. Many experiments were conducted to determine this velocity the most famous one being the Michelson-Morley experiment.

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    • Explains that classical mechanics was accepted in the scientific community, but as the nineteenth century drew to a close, new observations were being made, which contradicted the current theory of the time.
    • Explains that light was a wave, and that the ether was everywhere throughout the universe. many experiments were conducted to determine this velocity.
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    • Explains that under galilean relativity, the speed of the light relative to the ground would be c + 40mph. special relativity attempts to explain the consequences of this phenomenon
    • Explains that the most unintuitive result from relativity is the idea of time dilation. the idea that time was an absolute measure ruled the thoughts of scientists until the early twentieth century.
    • Explains that the light travels at a constant speed, c, so it cannot be speeding up or slowing down.
    • Explains that time dilation allows the light to travel two different distances in the same interval of time, relative to a single reference point.
    • Explains that to calculate how slow time is going for some other inertial frame, we must make the calculation below. to is the "proper time" or the time that the moving body reads.
    • Explains that gamma can never reach zero. as the velocity of the body approaches c, the time dilation grows big.
    • Explains that the perceived distance from point a to b relative to fast-moving objects is less than the distance for stationary objects.
    • Explains that the distance from the spaceship to the planet appears to be less than if both were stationary.
    • Calculates the length of our spaceship by plugging in 100000 for lo and.9c for v. everything else is constant.
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    • Explains that the kinetic energy of an object needs to be reevaluated for high speeds.
    • Explains that when the velocity is small, the equation will reduce down to the traditional equation for kinetic energy.
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    • Explains einstein's equation e=mc2 where m is the mass at rest. this equation says that mass and energy are equivalent to each other.
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    analytical essay
    Newton acquired many of these lenses and began to experiment with how they could manipulate rays of light. In one of his experiments he had a beam of sunlight pass through one of the prisms and observed a spectrum of light hitting the wall of a dark room. He continues to manipulate these experiments. In one he drilled a small hole into a board placed against a window and then placed a prism over the hole. He projected this beam of light onto a wall as well as on a white sheet of paper. This created a round white image with a sliver of blue around the upper rim and red around the lower rim. He performed another experiment in which he had a beam of white light pass through one prism which separated the different colors and then made it pass through an identical prism that was upside down, which turned the beam back into plain white light. Through these experiments he showed that light can be both decomposed and put back

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    • Explains the correlation between light and color, and the symbolic nature of color and how it affects the psychology of observers.
    • Explains that isaac newton had a fascination with color and its relationship with light. he came up with multiple hypotheses to explain what mechanical properties of light caused the appearance of different colors.
    • Describes how newton experimented with the use of microscopes and telescopes to manipulate rays of light.
    • Explains how newton proved that prisms and mirrors do not change the properties of light and don't cause cause color.
    • Explains that the sun's white light is homogenial, meaning that it is composed of all the colors of light. modern scientists refer to this feature as a monochroma.
    • Explains that unlike his previous theory, he no longer postulates that the force of the particles hitting the eye causes the perception of color, but the inertia of these particles.
    • Explains newton's decision to separate the spectrum of light into seven separate colors, red, yellow, orange, green, blue, indigo, and violet.
    • Analyzes newton's theory of color, stating that white light is composed of all of the different particles and therefore homogenial. he created a particle theory of light that attributes color to the respective masses and inertias of particles.
    • Analyzes how goethe challenged newton's theory of light and color in his paper zur farbenlehre.
    • Explains that goethe's theory states that the appearance of the sky displays this phenomenon.
    • Explains goethe's claim that a special type of turbid medium that results in the phenomena of an entire spectrum of colors is the prism.
    • Explains goethe's theory that color is not a physical thing that exists on its own, it only becomes part of reality when it is perceived by people.
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    Cherop Soi Mrs. Foley Physics November 14, 2017 Quantum Mechanics Quantum Mechanics developed over many decades beginning as a set of controversial mathematical explanations of experiments that the math of classical mechanics could not explain. It began in the turn of the 20th century, a separate mathematical revolution in physics that describes the motion of things at high speeds. The origins of Quantum Mechanics cannot be credited to any one scientists. Multiple scientists contributed to a foundation of three revolutionary principles that gradually gained acceptance and experiment verification from 1900-1930 (Coolman).

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    • Explains that quantum mechanics developed over many decades beginning as a set of controversial mathematical explanations of experiments that the math of classical mechanics could not explain.
    • Explains quantum mechanics is a branch of physics that describes the structure and behavior of matter. it replaced classical mechanics, based on physical laws described by sir isaac newton and james clerk maxwell.
    • Explains that quantum mechanics describes objects and phenomena that seem strange and are difficult to understand, such as quantum energy, wave-particle duality, and the uncertainty principle.
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    • Explains that certain properties, such as position, speed and color, can sometimes only occur in specific, set amounts. this challenged the assumption of classical mechanics, which said such properties should exist on a smooth, continuous spectrum.
    • Describes planck's equation to explain the distribution of colors emitted over the spectrum in the glow of red and white-hot objects, which was unexpected because light was understood to act as a wave.
    • Explains how quantization helped explain other mysteries of physics. in 1907, einstein used planck's hypothesis of quantization to explain why the temperature changed by different amounts if you put the same amount of heat into the material.
    • Explains that light behaves as a wave, like ripples on the surface of calm lakes. added wave crests result in brighter light, while waves that cancel out produce darkness.
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    explanatory essay
    In this experiment, Newton placed a second prism 5 or 6 yards away from the first. At first, when the light passed through the prisms, his results were the same as the first experiment. However, when the prisms were moved farther away from the wall onto which the light was being projected, the light projected from the prisms became white again. When they were moved even farther, the light became colored again, but the color scale was inverted from the original scale. According to the accepted theory of light, the second prism changed the color of the light projected onto the wall. Therefore, Newton’s results once again contradicted the accepted theory of light. He also rotated the prisms to test if this would have an effect on the light, but it did not. Due to these observations, Newton concluded that light was in fact a combination of all light on the spectrum of light, not just a mixture of light and

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    • Explains newton's three laws of motion, which were fundamental in explaining the elliptical orbits of planets, moons and comets.
    • Explains that newton began to show interest in light while away from trinity college. the experiment led to the formation of the modern theory of light quanta.
    • Explains that isaac newton created an intricate experiment to test and verify the current theory of light. the key to his experiment was a glass prism.
    • Explains newton's experimentum crucis, where he placed a second prism 5 or 6 yards away from the first, and rotated them to test if this would have an effect on the light.
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  • Oscilloscope Essay
    explanatory essay
    An oscilloscope is an electronic test instrument that is used to observe an electronic signal, typically voltage, as a function of time. In other words, it is a voltage versus time plotter. Oscilloscopes come in two basic types, analogue or digital, and support various features and functions useful for measuring and testing electronic circuits. An oscilloscope is a key piece of test equipment for any electronics designer.

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    • Explains that an oscilloscope is an electronic test instrument that is used to observe electronic signals as a function of time.
    • Explains that an oscilloscope measures voltage, time and frequency, pulse and rise measurements, and phase shifts. it is primarily a voltage-measuring device.
    • Explains that voltage measurements are taken by counting the number of divisions a waveform spans on the oscilloscope's vertical scale. the more screen area you use, the more accurately you can read from the screen.
    • Explains that many oscilloscopes have on-screen cursors that let you take waveform measurements automatically, without having to count graticule marks.
    • Explains that time measurements include measuring the period, pulse width, and timing of pulses using the horizontal scale of the oscilloscope.
    • Explains that pulses can become distorted and cause a digital circuit to malfunction. the timing of pulse trains is important in many applications.
    • Explains that pulse measurements are pulse width and pulse rise time. pulse width is measured at 50% of full voltage.
    • Recommends learning how to use trigger hold off and set the digital oscilloscope to capture pre trigger data. horizontal magnification is another useful feature for measuring pulses.
    • Explains that the horizontal control section may have an xy mode that lets you display an input signal rather than the time base on horizontal axis. this mode of operation opens up a whole new area of phase shift measurement techniques.
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